After a historic six-game slide, the Virginia men’s lacrosse team finally got back on track Saturday with a 12-7 win against Bellarmine in the team’s regular season finale. In addition to claiming the victory, the Cavaliers also recognized the 10 athletes who played in their final game at Klöckner Stadium as part of the team’s Senior Day.
“It’s been a really great four years here for us and I can’t describe the brotherhood and camaraderie that you have with your classmates on this team,” senior midfielder Matt White said. “It’s just really great that we were able to come out here and get a win on Senior Day.”
The game marked Virginia’s (6-7, 0-3 ACC) first victory since March 5, when the Cavaliers escaped against Vermont, 12-10 in Charlottesville. The losing streak was the longest under coach Dom Starsia and the program’s longest single-season streak since 1939. The Cavaliers must now win the ACC Tournament to finish above .500 and be eligible for the NCAA Tournament, which Starsia has missed only once in his 21-year career at Virginia.
“When you’re on a skid like that and you’re dealing with 18- to 22-year-old kids — we like to win, everyone likes to win — and when you continue to lose it’s kind of a growing burden,” White said. “But now we’ve got one under our belts, I think we’re headed in the right direction, so I’m excited about the ACC Tournament.”
Virginia drew first blood against Bellarmine (7-5, 3-4 ECAC) when junior attackman Mark Cockerton split his man and finished on the crease at the 9:42 mark in the first quarter, but the Knights answered three minutes later on a goal by sophomore midfielder Ryan Scinta to draw even.
Playing at an excruciatingly slow pace at times, Bellarmine was placed under the stall warning on three different occasions in the first quarter. During the third warning of the period, senior midfielder Karsen Leung blew a shot over sophomore goaltender Rhody Heller’s shoulder with only five seconds remaining in the quarter to take a 2-1 lead.
Slow and sloppy play was again featured prominently in the second quarter. Four minutes into the period, junior attackman Nick O’Reilly picked up a groundball in a scrum in the offensive box and found junior midfielder Bobby Hill, who evened the score at 2-2 with his second goal of the season.
“I think we were all really excited to come out here for the last game on Klöckner and try to get a win, and we ended up making some energetic mistakes, but we can live with those,” White said.
The juniors continued to carry the scoring load as midfielder Rob Emery added a transition goal to give Virginia a 3-2 lead. Bellarmine senior attackman Luke Acton answered with a wide-open goal on the crease, but Emery struck again on a hard rip 35 seconds before halftime to give the Cavaliers a 4-3 lead into the break.
Bellarmine tied the game early in the third quarter when senior attackman Michael Ward beat his man around the left side of the crease to score. Virginia would then go on a tear, scoring four of the next five goals. Sophomore attackman Owen Van Arsdale scored his first of two on the game off O’Reilly’s second assist, and then Cockerton tallied his second goal when he put back a rebounded shot on the crease.
Ward scored again for the Knights when he caught the defense out of position to close the gap to 6-5, but Virginia would add two more goals before the quarter was over. Cockerton continued his assault on senior goaltender Dillon Ward — who boasted the nation’s best save percentage at .688 entering the game — with his third goal, followed by Emery completing his own hat trick, swimming through two men and then beating Ward low with three seconds left in the quarter.
Virginia outscored Bellarmine 8-4 in the second half, in large part due to sophomore midfielder Tyler German’s 9-of-13 mark from the faceoff X in the second half. German was filling in for usual faceoff specialist sophomore Mick Parks, who was out of town for family reasons.
Virginia led by a slight 8-6 margin early in the fourth quarter, but scored four straight to take control. Cockerton kicked off the run at the 11:07 mark when he caught a feed from O’Reilly and proceeded to spin around and rifle a lefty shot into the top left corner of the goal, a shot he termed a “360 spin-o-rama.”
“I saw Nick looking at me, so I caught it and just turned and fired it,” Cockerton said. “I was just trying to get it on net and luckily it went right top corner, so it was pretty sweet. You always want to get a goal like that, but you usually never do.”
Van Arsdale scored again on an assist from freshman attackman James Pannell, who then scored his own goal two minutes later. After a Bellarmine timeout, Cavalier senior midfielder Charlie Streep got on the board, the only senior to score a goal on the day. Streep was the recipient of O’Reilly’s game-high fourth assist.
Starsia then put a team of his seniors into the game, including goaltender Conor McGee and Cockerton’s older brother, attackman Matt Cockerton. McGee would let in a goal, but made an impressive save on the next shot against him, while both Cockertons played on attack at the same time.
“It was awesome,” Mark Cockerton said. “As soon as the coach put [Matt] in, I got a big smile on my face. We really haven’t played much together in our time here, and it was great to get five minutes or so in there.”
Virginia begins ACC Tournament play next Friday with a matchup against No. 4 Maryland in Chapel Hill.
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